martin silcock responding to my statement that "structure is evil".
> Aren't we are talking here about degrees of structure?. Do we create
> organisations simply because we need some kind of structure in our lives
> to just make sense of it?
I don't think so- structures should be just a means to an end and not ends
in themselves. Structures used to be a means when they were invented, but
they have creepingly taken on a life of their own and falsely become an
end such that they deplete our energy resources if individuals choose not
to comply with those structures. We need to recreate or better still
invent organizational forms that once again provide a vehicle for meeting
indvidual's aims such as fulfillment, dream and vision realization, social
and economic context and so on. Organizations as ends always entail the
explicitely implicit bargain that an individual CEDES and gives up
personal freedom and compromises on their personal dreams and visions in
return for "stability". Organizations as means such as collapsible
corpoartions are vehicles to combine as much stability as is possible in
an unorganized world (ie. not much) WITH dream and vision realization.
> At one end of the continuum there is rigid structure, with no movement,
> fossilised and unchanging where everything "knows" its place, and at the
> other fluidity, complete random continuous chaos where nothing is anywhere
> for very long!. At both ends there is no learning because the benefits of
> change is not captured.
In such hyperfludity, the ultimate competitive advantage is forgetfulness!
> Isn't the "trick" developing the organisational and individual skills and
> capabilities to disintegrate and re-assemble organisational structure, and
> probably our mental models, when needed, to respond and adapt to
> environmental forces in the systems of which we are a part.
Yes, dynamic structure- often shaped around electronic forces- rather than
stsitic, often physical, geographical structures like offices. We will
always have structure, because patterns ill always emerge even in
hyperfluidity.
> I suppose an organisation made up of "projects" on which teams work for
> varying timescales may be part of a model for this? Do these already
> exist, do they work, and under what conditions of structure?
I suspect that COMMUNICATION is the STRUCTURE of these companies- my
largest unorganization client in the US- a world leader in the
distribution of physical goods has evolved a global electronic structure
to investigate higher value-added service ideas leveraging its organized
and successful core. Its success seems to be inversely related to the
quantity and quality of communcication between members around the world
exploring the new services. Problems arise when commmunication stops and
progress is taken for granted- requiring hypercommunication to achieve
subsequent residual recovery of right direction. Problems are just
uncommunicated differences- in actions and expectations. This intense
deliberate communication is itself a transaction cost- it needs working
hard at and may not always be business- you provide deliberate
opportunities to other people in the collapsible corporation to explain
and notify about problems- but naturally they seldom actually arise. But
the benefits from avoidance of misunderstanding achieved from effective
and honest ongoing inter-personal communication- facilitated by technology
tools such as the Net- make such dynamic organizations possible and also
present greater, later costs incurred from error correction.
This company really is on the right path- I wish I could say who they are
and recommend their stock to you!
Great post Martin containing what appears to me to be much truth. The
fundamental question is, can humans find the courage, self-confidence and
discipline to develop the middle way between fludity and rigidity- or are
we doomed to persist in periodic crises and reinventions of world
configuations becuase we do not have the capacity to learn and thereby
evolve- hence, we must revolve. This goes back to the democracy thread and
the learning organization as the ultimate form of democracy. It is, if
each and everyone learns or if we can distribute the power of influence so
widely that no ignorance or inability or unwillingness to learn can force
negative changes on other that they cannot escape.
regards sincerely Simon Buckingham
http://www.unorgn.com
unorganization: business not busyness!
--Simon Buckingham <go57@dial.pipex.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>